077 Rights Watch

06/10/2014

"Last week, we traveled to Crowley, Louisiana to look deeper into the Theresa Richard story, who has been arrested twice in six months for recording cops in public, where we came across a former Crowley cop who granted us a very candid interview about how the department was conducting no-knock raids several times a week, finding very little drugs, but generating plenty of federal grants because of the raids."

05/12/2014

"Supporters of the National Security Agency inevitably defend its sweeping collection of phone and Internet records on the ground that it is only collecting so-called “metadata”—who you call, when you call, how long you talk. Since this does not include the actual content of the communications, the threat to privacy is said to be negligible. That argument is profoundly misleading.

'If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content.’ When I quoted Baker at a recent debate at Johns Hopkins University, my opponent, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA, called Baker’s comment ‘absolutely correct,’ and raised him one, asserting, ‘We kill people based on metadata.’"

05/11/2014

"Seasteaders don’t seek to impose one vision of society. Seasteaders seek to provide anyone with the technology to start their own nation. We think a fluid frontier will fundamentally change the relationship between government and the governed.

Imagine if your city was like a floating Lego set. You can shift and assemble and reassemble at will. Governments can only form if people choose to attach to each other. If you got in a political fight, you can detach your houseboat, sail somewhere else, link up with your allies, and found your own nation. If you can vote with your house, governments will be like companies and citizens will be more like customers. We think this will create a market of governments competing to attract citizens. On a fluid frontier, citizens wouldn’t struggle to survive government’s choices, governments would struggle to survive citizen’s choices—just like companies that go out of business when they fail us."

05/08/2014

’: "Why would you want to elect Hillary Clinton president? Why, so she can ‘rein in’ these silly notions you have of being able to exercise the rights the Constitution guarantees you. After all, you might think you’re getting a gun to protect yourself from bad guys (whether of the street variety or of the official variety), but Hillary Clinton is smarter and more sophisticated than you, and she knows that what you will really do is pull out your piece and blow away some stranger who is annoying you by talking on their phone or chewing gum.

04/10/2014

"Coalition of Western State Legislators, Sheriffs, and Veterans Stand Vigil in Support of Embattled Nevada Rancher, Cliven Bundy ‘To Prevent Another Ruby Ridge or Waco’

A Delegation of state legislators, lead by Washington State Representative Matt Shea, along with a delegation of current serving Sheriffs, lead by Sheriff Richard Mack of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, and military and police members of Oath Keepers, are converging on the site of a stand-off between federal law enforcement and Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy, to prevent bloodshed and to stand in defense of hardworking rural Americans who are under assault by a runaway federal government. "

04/09/2014

"‘What’s happened the last two weeks, the United States government, the bureaus are getting this army together and they’re going to get their job done and they’re going to prove two things. They’re going to prove they can do it, and they’re gonna prove that they have unlimited power, and that they control the policing power over this public land. That’s what they’re trying to prove.’"

04/03/2014

"‘Here’s what I would say to anybody who any time they hear the word guns automatically goes off, like, ‘Oh, they’re going to repeal the Second Amendment,’’ he said. ‘Let’s make a bet, you and me. Let’s say over the next five years — we’ll do a Google search, we’ll have an independent party monitor it — you keep track of how many good and constructive things are associated with athletes having a gun, and I’ll keep track of all the tragedies and criminality and folly. And let’s see who comes out ahead or behind as the case may be. These things are directly connected.’"

03/27/2014

"'I can also confirm that State Senator Leland Yee is also a part of the ongoing investigation that's taking place at this time,' said Greg Wuthrich with the FBI.

Yee, who represents half of San Francisco and most of San Mateo County, was arrested at his home in the Sunset District Wednesday morning while agents searched his house for evidence. He was driven to the federal building where he was booked on public corruption charges.

Yee is charged with six counts of depriving the public of honest services and one count of conspiracy to traffic in guns without a license.

Court documents say Yee or one of his campaign staffers accepted at least $42,800 in cash or campaign contributions from undercover FBI agents in exchange for carrying out agents' requests. He is also accused of trying to help an undercover agent obtain weapons from a Muslim rebel group."

03/26/2014

"The IRS has ruled Bitcoin should be treated as property, not as currency, for tax purposes.

According to Bitcoin tax expert Tyson Cross, this will create a significant burden on Bitcoin users, as every transaction they ever make using the digital currency will have to be reported in some way."

03/23/2014

"It has become almost an article of faith in the firearms industry that even reports from our federal government that show a continuing decline in crime will get little media attention. And so it was again with the release this month of the FBI’s preliminary Uniform Crime Statistics for the first half of 2013 that showed that murders fell by nearly 7 percent compared with the same period in 2012 while violent crime overall fell by 5.4 percent.

Source: Dept. of Justice

These crime reductions continue a 30-year trend

as the Department of Justice reported last year, even while the public is largely unaware of this remarkable shift toward a safer society..."

03/22/2014

"This is scary: Police across the country may be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they're refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do.

Police say Stingray, a suitcase-size device that pretends it's a cell tower, is useful for catching criminals, but that's about all they'll say..."

03/18/2014

"An (obviously canned) email this correspondent received from United States Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) makes a startling admission, if startling only for its honesty (emphasis added):

'I support efforts that address illegal possession and use of firearms. Common sense restrictions such as bans on multi-round magazines and assault weapons are supported by law enforcement officials who patrol our streets [by the 'law enforcement officials who patrol our streets,' Senator, or by the political hacks, appointed by gun-hating politicians, who presume to both command them and speak for them?]. I also support universal background checks to prevent the transfer of firearms without a background check by non-licensed gun sellers'.

Most of that comes as no surprise to anyone with any knowledge of Durbin's abysmal record on gun rights (and even 'body armor rights'). But what's this about the 'common sense restriction' of a ban on 'multi-round magazines'? When you think about it, after all, magazines can be broken down into two categories: 'multi-round,' and . . . single-round, and if Durbin wants the first one banned, that would leave only the second."

03/12/2014

"Synopsis As Introduced Creates the Firearms Registration Act. Provides that every person in the State must register each firearm he or she owns or possesses in accordance with the Act. Provides that a person shall not purchase or possess ammunition within this State without having first obtained a registration certificate identifying a firearm that is suitable for use with that ammunition, or a receipt demonstrating that the person has applied to register a suitable firearm under the Act and that the application is pending..."

"WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch defender of government surveillance of ordinary citizens, took to the Senate floor Tuesday with the stunning accusation that the Central Intelligence Agency may have violated federal law to spy on Congress. "

"So the NSA is spying on you. You've known that for quite some time now. What you might not know much about is exactly how they're doing, and a new report from Ryan Gallagher and Glenn Greenwald offers up some pretty grizzly details about the agency's worldwide, automated malware network.

Did you know, for instance, that the NSA pretends to be Facebook sometimes? As Gallagher and Greenwald report, 'In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target's computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive.' That's a little extra worrisome when you consider the fact that Facebook has Like buttons spread across the entire internet, giving the NSA that many more chances for its malware to burrow into your hard drive."

03/08/2014

The collectivist unrelenting delusion: They are willing to make you sacrifice yourself and your children for however many generations needed in the hope that violence and extortion will some day - hopefully - make things work better than voluntary cooperation… which is to say, the ends is the means.

"You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.

I am not an education policy wonk: I’m just judgmental. But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good."

03/06/2014

"‘The reason is I don’t want to get shot, because I believe that if somebody tried to enforce something of that magnitude, you would see the second coming of an American revolution, the likes of which would make the first revolution pale by comparison,’ he added."

03/04/2014

"Connecticut State Police Spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance state that a citizen who stood against ban was “anti-American,” and proclaim that “I am the master.”

Reading between the lines of Vance’s statements, McDaniel thinks, based on his own experience as a law enforcement officer, that the Connecticut State Police are preparing to come for your guns with everything they have:

Anyone listening to Lt. Vance should come away with the understanding that the State Police certainly will send SWAT teams to the homes of citizens, and will, if they deem it necessary, kill them over the number of rounds their magazines are capable of holding and the appearance of their rifles. They will kill people to please blood-thirsty politicians.” - Bob Owens at Bearing Arms

"The State of Connecticut says that all citizens must register rifles and high capacity magazines, or be charged will a felony. As many as 350,000 people could face heavily armed police smashing down their doors and be charged with a felony.

The fact is, that the Connecticut legislature fully intends to confiscate hundreds of thousands of firearms anyway. The registration process will simply make it easier to confiscate, because you acknowledge that you still own a firearm that the state already suspects that you own.

In a recorded phone call Connecticut State Police Spokesman Lt. Vance was reached at at (860) 685-8290 and says that state police would comply with an order from the state to conduct door to door gun confiscations."

"Friday, June 27th, 2014, 0-dark-thirty: The politicians have made their decision. By a twist of fate–your file simply happened to be on the top of the stack for no particular reason–you’ll be the first example. A state police SWAT team pull to the curb in front of your home, leap from their van and rush to your front door. Two black-clad men pull back a ram and swing it toward your front door, aiming just above the knob, while the rest of the team waits anxiously, their automatic weapons charged and off safe. Two hope they’ll get the opportunity to shoot. At least one wants to manufacture the opportunity.

You’ve made two major mistakes; they will cost your life and destroy your family: you live in a blue state where the governor and legislature have no respect for the Constitution and the lives and liberty of citizens, and you were foolish enough to obey the law.

Starting awake from a sound sleep by the explosion of your door being smashed open and the heavy stomping of booted feet, you stumble down the stairs and into the hallway. As you turn toward the sounds, you’re blinded by multiple bright lights and hear many people screaming at you, but their words are unintelligible. You raise your hands to shield your eyes, but you have your cell phone in your right hand. As soon as it comes into view, you’re overwhelmed by a tidal wave of explosive sounds and feel the first bullets rip into your body. There are stars, so many stars, winking and suddenly, everything goes silent and black and your last conscious thought is a feeling of falling."

03/03/2014

"The city (New York) is refusing to settle the suit, arguing that police had no duty to protect the people on the train. But ‘that doesn’t detract from the Police Department’s public safety mission,’ the city says, ‘or the fact that New York is the safest big city in America.’ It’s curious that New York City would tout its safety record while asserting that its police officers have no responsibility to protect people from knife-wielding madmen."

02/26/2014

"Now, thanks to the efforts of National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald, readers no longer have to take the word of ‘paranoid’ bloggers who relate tales of paid government trolls lurking in comment sections and other concentrated top-down efforts to muddy the information provided by alternative media.

On his The Intercept blog this week, Greenwald provides documents from Snowden’s NSA cache which provide a look at some of the tactics employed by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a spy agency that has been shown to have a close working relationship with the American spy agency."

02/21/2014

"We understand that when you entrust us with your digital life, you expect us to keep your stuff safe. Like most online services, we sometimes receive requests from governments seeking information about our users. These principles describe how we deal with the requests we receive and how we’ll work to try to change the laws to make them more protective of your privacy."

"SACRAMENTO, CA— Today Assemblyman Jones released a statement regarding the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which they struck down a requirement by San Diego County that residents show 'good cause' to carry a concealed firearm. Before concluding its decision, the Ninth Circuit observed:

‘We are well aware that, in the judgment of many governments, the safest sort of firearm-carrying regime is one which restricts the privilege to law enforcement with only narrow exceptions. Nonetheless, ‘the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. . . . Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court [or ours] to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.’(McDonald v. Chicago)"

02/07/2014

"U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told law students at the University of Hawaii law school Monday that the nation’s highest court was wrong to uphold the internment of Japa­nese-Americans during World War II but that he wouldn’t be surprised if the court issued a similar ruling during a future conflict.

Scalia was responding to a question about the court’s 1944 decision in Kore­ma­tsu v. United States, which upheld the convictions of Gordon Hira­ba­ya­shi and Fred Kore­ma­tsu for violating an order to report to an internment camp.

‘Well, of course, Kore­ma­tsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,’ Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime question-and-answer session.

"Reacting to a report that says Obamacare will lower work hours because it lowers the hourly threshold an American must work in order to obtain health care, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called 'freedom' a 'buzzword' on Tuesday.

'It’s not anything but an added choice that they have that allows them more freedom, to use a certain buzzword, more choice,' he said.

'This actually explains a lot,' the Independent Journal Review said. 'THIS is why the Obama Administration is so willy-nilly with our freedoms as Americans! They think it’s just a buzzword! They don’t realize it’s an actual thing!'"

That’s not shocking to us, most Americans don’t know what freedom is anyways...

09/16/2013

We don't think so, and neither does Professor David Kopel, who stated:

"‘The vast majority of defensive gun uses are at distances of just a few feet,’ he adds. ‘A woman who may not be able to read a street sign 50 yards away may still have sufficiently good vision to shoot a predator two feet away who is attempting to rape and strangle her. Moreover, a person who is totally blind can still identify the center of mass of a person who is trying to beat him to death.’"

09/09/2013

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune

Fear - it's what gives power to those that control you… There is reasonable fear, and unreasonable fear. The fear of "weapons" and what to do about them is an unreasonable fear, it is one of the key tools used to control the masses.

We have mentioned this before, but despite what all the Ph.D's, talking heads, men in suits and politicians have been saying: there is no amount of psychological profiling that can guarantee this (Sandy Hook, school type shootings) won't happen again; door buzzers, metal detectors and CCTV will not prevent this from happening again; SWAT, FBI, State Police, local cops will not prevent this from happening again; and a solitary armed security guard in a school of 200 students with 15 classrooms, a gym and auditorium and offices will not prevent this from happening again.

The report below proves our point...

"'It's almost impossible to absolutely ensure that a gun is never going to come into a school building by the hands of a student, a teacher or a visitor,' said school safety expert Edward F. Dragan, founder of Education Management Consulting, LLC in Lambertville, N.J.

Of the state's approximately 1,100 public k-12 schools, 537 reported at least one incident where a 'weapon' was involved. The state collects the data from local school systems. Items are defined as weapons by their use and some common items found in schools, such as pens and pencils, are included."

09/07/2013

"As raisin grapes produce only a single crop per season, Horne could lose a hefty slice of his harvest. But, like all raisin growers in the United States, he is used to having part of his crop taken from him.

Since 1949, the government has been taking its share of their harvests under a Department of Agriculture protectionist order - Marketing Order 989 – originally designed to keep prices high and growers in business.

‘It began as 25 percent and then it went to 35 percent and then the year in question, they told us, we're going to take 47% of your crop. I said you’re not taking any of it,’ Horne told me as we trod softly through the avenues of sugary sweet Thompson grapes, waiting to be trimmed by seasonal Hispanic harvesters."

09/05/2013

"School boards may choose a school employee to act as a “school marshal” and carry a concealed weapon on campus unless regular duties include interaction with students, in which case the firearm would remain under lock unless an emergency occurs. The marshal’s identity would remain anonymous except to a few public officials. The law requires marshals to participate in an 80-hour training program and that firearms be loaded with specialized bullets that disintegrate upon contact with hard surfaces.

According to an analysis by the House Research Organization, opponents believe the law could cause gun-related accidents due to the limited required training."

Pulses' Parting shots:

So, if an employee can be armed with a concealed weapon, "unless regular duties include interaction with students." Doesn't disarming yourself and locking your weapon in a lock box defeating the purpose of concealed? The whole point of being an armed employee is to be in the place and at the right time when shots are being fired so one can effectively affect change in an active shooter situation and save lives?

"...opponents believe the law could cause gun-related accidents due to the limited required training." 80 hours is limited training? In 32 hours we can take a person with no firearms experience and make them competent gun-fighters, able to shoot, move, and communicate while decisively eliminating any threat. Give us 80 hours and we will have your teachers operating at the special forces level, no need to call the cops for anything but cleanup work and documentation.

08/19/2013

In their never ending crusade to keep our children safe from the evils of this tempting world, our benevolent legislators are teaming up with concerned lawyers and setting their sights on those horrible dens of iniquity known as Hookah Lounges.

According to authorities who know a lot about stuff; hookah lounges must be shut down to save our children from these shops of ill-repute. Alternatively, hookah lounge operators can begin engage in the political process by first bribing -oops… sorry, we mean "lobby" their elected officials and then submit to "regulation" and keep their businesses open.

"Lounge opponents say that hookah with its flavored tobacco smoke bubbling through cooling water is the gateway to cigarette smoking.

‘There’s a risk that people who are non-smokers will be drawn to these places, enjoy the social aspect of using hookahs in these lounges. Then find themselves addicted to nicotine and needing to buy packs of Marlboros,’ says Mark Gottlieb, executive director at the Public Health Advocacy Institute."

08/12/2013

"The technological system, known as a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS), utilizes tiny devices that are implanted in guns and other weapons. These devices are more than chips; they are actual mechanical processes created by precision engineering that can affect the weapon’s operations. Media reports reveal the devices include miniature GPS systems designed to make guns easier to track and self-destruct systems that could cause them to explode if they receive a wireless signal.

The technology coincides with the ‘smart gun’ technology Anthony Gucciardi has broken down in the past, which can be used to ‘turn off’ weapons when in gun free zones or whenever designated by government."

"In its response to Edward Snowden’s revelations about the nature and extent of NSA spying on Americans, the Obama administration has by this time gone through all the stages of grief: denial, reluctant acknowledgment, and – finally – acceptance of the reality that the jig is up.

Initially, we were told that this is really not anything new, and that we should all just move along. When that didn’t work, we were told that, yes, these programs are potentially intrusive, but we needn’t worry – since it’s all 'legal,' our government is on the job, and 'oversight' of the process is firmly in place. When this was exposed by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian team as a palpable falsehood, the President himself went out to sell the Kool-Aid, assuring us that, although he is satisfied the NSA isn’t doing anything untoward, he understands why someone would assume so – and vaguely promised to put 'reforms' in place.

To recap: whenever government officials have tried to reassure the public everything is right with the Fourth Amendment, claiming critics are simply exaggerating, they have been shown to be liars.

"The IRS, which primarily acts as an audit agency, refuses to answer why its agents need AR-15s for ‘standoff capability.’

In May, U.S. Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-SC) was getting a lot of questions about ammo shortages and government agencies stockpiling guns and ammo. He wanted to know why IRS agents were buying ammo in large quantities and wanted to see the ammo supply himself. He went to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Maryland where he witnessed 8 or 9 IRS agents using AR-15s at an indoor 100 yard firing range."

Pulse comments: Don't be shocked when your servile actions cause your oppressors to treat you like the slaves you act like.

07/31/2013

"When Julia Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), released her memorandum on how to reduce gun violence in the United States and Latin America, it revealed not only the CFR’s blatant disregard for Americans' Second Amendment rights but also Sweig's proclivity to use outdated and widely discredited statistics to make her case for more restrictions on those rights. She also used flawed logic and outright falsehoods:…

But as William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott from Fox News reported, ‘There’s just one problem with the 90 percent ‘statistic’, and it’s a big one: it’s just not true…’

So, where do they come from? The authors tick off the sources:

• The black market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers;

• South America. During the late 1990s the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling … partnership with the Tijuana cartel (in Mexico)…;

• Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico;

• The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers [have] deserted in the last six years.… Many of them took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium;

• Guatemala. On March 27th, 2009 … police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border [of Guatemala]."

07/29/2013

"An Illinois sheriff’s team is crisscrossing the Chicago suburbs in an effort to seize guns from thousands of people whose right to own a firearm has been revoked, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

According to the paper, more than 3,000 people in Cook County have failed to surrender their revoked Firearm Owners Identification Card, or FOID, which is required to legally buy guns or ammunition.

Sheriff Tom Dart said he thinks many of the 3,000 continue to possess firearms.

The Chicago Police Department regularly conducts missions to recover revoked FOID cards and take guns from the owners, but there wasn’t a big push to do the same thing in the suburbs until now, Dart reportedly told the paper.

‘The system is broken,’ the sheriff said. ‘The system revokes cards, but the guns are of no consequence. . . . Our strong hope is that we will eliminate tragedies.’"

07/26/2013

"Not only is good citizenship not taught in most churches; it is actually lampooned and denigrated. They teach that because the Scripture says we are citizens of Heaven, we have little or no responsibility to our country, State, town, etc. Of course, that doesn’t take them away from the mall or the television set when their favorite ball team is playing or the lake or the golf course.

But not only are so many of today’s pastors and churches enslaved to denominationalism, they are also enslaved to incorporationism. That might not be a real word, but it is a real truth."

"The first sign at the Pentagon Station is done in the style of the theater scene from George Orwell’s 1984 and features Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, as ‘Big Brother’ (which we think he was born to play):

That ‘Big Brother’ sign makes it clear that by exposing the NSA spying on Americans, Snowden honored his oath, and other government employees need to honor their oaths by also exposing unconstitutional actions.

The second sign now in place at Pentagon Station (of John F. Kennedy during his inaugural oath with hand on Bible swearing to uphold the Constitution) is aimed directly at CIA employees, reminding them that their oath is not to a ‘corporate culture of secrecy’ as new CIA director Brennan recently stated, but is in fact to the Constitution:"

And that sign is very similar to the billboard we have placed outside of the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms.

All three signs direct the readers to the same landing page at oathkeepers.org/expose where Oath Keepers has a strong message for them… <---click this link to visit the Oath Keeper page and see more billboards

07/23/2013

"There are a number of narratives being floated by the usual suspects to attempt to demonstrate that Edward Snowden is a traitor who has betrayed secrets vital to the security of the United States. All the arguments being made are essentially without merit. Snowden has undeniably violated his agreement to protect classified information, which is a crime. But in reality, he has revealed only one actual secret that matters, which is the United States government’s serial violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution through its collection of personal information on millions of innocent American citizens without any probable cause or search warrant.

That makes Snowden a whistleblower, as he is exposing illegal activity on the part of the federal government. The damage he has inflicted is not against U.S. national security but rather on the politicians and senior bureaucrats who ordered, managed, condoned, and concealed the illegal activity."

The Obama-sponsored bill (SB 2386) enlarged the state’s 1961 law by shielding the person who was attacked from being sued in civil court by perpetrators or their estates when a ‘stand your ground’ defense is used in protecting his or her person, dwelling or other property."

07/22/2013

"Mohandas Gandhi, the greatest pacifist of the 20th century, is widely quoted as having said, ‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look back upon the Act depriving the whole nation of arms as the blackest.’

Some have struggled to reconcile his pacifism with an opposition to disarmament. But there really is nothing to reconcile once you understand, as Gandhi said on another occasion, that ‘the State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form.’

Peaceful Gun Owners and the Violent State

Gun control advocates have long associated themselves with the cause of anti-violence. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says it all in its name. In the midst of high-profile mass shootings in 2012 — at a Wisconsin Sikh temple, a Colorado movie theater, and a Connecticut elementary school — we immediately heard calls for greater firearms restrictions in the name of domestic peace. Those of us who resisted this agenda were often decried for insensitivity toward the horrors of violence against the innocent. Gun controllers seem not to recognize that their policy itself encapsulates violence.

All the government’s prohibitions rely on violent state power. Indeed, the state itself is simply the institution with a socially legitimized monopoly on legal force, as most law and political science professors would agree. When the state criminalizes an activity or the ownership of contraband, it enforces its prohibition through legal violence — ultimately, through police using guns to force suspects to go to court and, if convicted, to go to prison…"

"That Edward Snowden has put the whole political, corporate, and governing class in a bind. With his revelations that a heretofore obscure agency has long been collecting all data on our digital lives, Snowden very plainly blew up the whole perception that government is somehow of, by, and for the people. The picture he paints is a government straight out of a dystopian novel.

For a few weeks, the ruling class hoped the whole thing would just go away. Maybe the NSA could continue to data mine, the corporations would continue to cooperate, and the 48-hour news cycle would eat this story same as any other political flash in the pan.

No so!

Wholly owned government mouthpieces like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are disgracing themselves daily on national television by demanding that Snowden be forcibly returned and prosecuted. In fact, Graham is even demanding that the U.S. pull out of the 2014 Olympics to protest the asylum Russia is providing for this nice, young whistle-blower.

It’s not enough that Graham wants to lock up or fry the guy who did such a wonderful service for us all; now he wants to punish American athletes by denying them the chance to compete in the event that would define their lives. And why? Because Russia is entirely too sympathetic to human rights for his taste?

Meanwhile, the pressure is building for Congress to intervene. Actually, thanks to swarms of emails landing all over Capitol Hill, many politicians have had to go against their cowardly instincts and actually dare to protest..."

"Back in 1972, when I was a 10-year-old technology and news geek in Chicagoland, a particular story grabbed my attention. Someone had planted time bombs in safe deposit boxes across the country. Their timing systems could be set up to seven months in advance — an impressive feat in 1971 — using common wireless electric clocks.

I returned to the story of the bomber, Dr. Ronald Kaufman, Ph.D., years later while researching a book. Looking for his dissertation, I stumbled across a fascinating double life that even Kaufman probably didn’t know he was leading. He shows up all over government budget requests and long-forgotten congressional reports — the types of headlines nobody sees because they’re almost too boring to think about.

I’ve learned two things at least: First, never underestimate the incompetence of the bureaucracy. Second, a fugitive bomber can always be “found” whenever security agencies feel shortchanged by their current budgets. The first might give you a measure of relief in the face of another IRS witch hunt and Edward Snowden’s revelations: The NSA might not be able to do too much with all those emails and text messages you sent. The second puts a damper on that: For one thing, that security we keep being promised — if we’ll just cough up a little more liberty in exchange — never quite seems to materialize. Unfortunately, there are no refunds..."

Background: Mr. Jay Rodney Lewis is a former security guard, hunter, gun collector, and law enforcement officer who relocated to Des Moines to take a federal job, he is also a black man who stood his ground and shot two white men who were attempting to rob him. You probably haven't heard of this case, but you should know about it, because it reinforces the concept that the you may lose everything you own - even if your shooting is justifiable.

We are not saying race was a factor here, we are only pointing out the facts and emphasizing what state does to honest men in order to maintain it's monopoly on violence.

"Editor's note/update to this story: Jay Rodney Lewis spent Tuesday night in his car because there were no beds available at the YMCA.

He likely will do the same tonight, then seek a spot in a homeless shelter on Thursday. This will give him place to sleep and shower for the time being while working. He plans to spend this weekend in Kansas with family.

After 112 days in jail, the first thing Jay Rodney Lewis did after being acquitted this month was ‘go to Fuddruckers and get me a burger. Because that jail food was horrible.’"

"I’m not saying if we allow OC (open carry) here in Florida that old ladies are going to drop their make-shift asps and grab a shoulder holster and a 44 Magnum to walk around the shuffleboards (although I bet some will and will suddenly see their scores go up). In fact, I’d go so far as to say when people can bear arms openly and not have the gov’t interfere, that very few people will actually take advantage of it. Most people will simply switch to a more comfortable OWB holster and cover with their shirt.

There’s still a social stigma that will prevent people from OC’ing and, to be honest, those who tend to ignore the social stigma aspect tend to be people with low levels of couth, hence why it appears that many OC activists are blowhards – they actually are. My original point stands, however – Most Floridians see people walking around openly carrying weapons all the time and don’t blink an eye. Why the type of weapon matters is beyond me."

"If it wasn’t bad enough that the President and the AG Eric Holder have began their crusade to turn victims who defend themselves into felons, now John McCain, the former GOP Presidential candidate, has joined ranks with them in calling for a ‘review’ (aka revocation) of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws nationwide.

This announcement comes in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict where the neighborhood watch volunteer legally defended his life from an assault perpetrated by Trayvon Martin. Apparently these left leaning politicians aren’t content with the verdict and now want to make it illegal for all Americans to defend themselves from such violent attacks. Couple that with their regularly scheduled gun grabs and it seems we’re in for another bumpy ride."